Thursday, November 5, 2015

Knox County BOE remains in standoff over nontenured teacher policy

Proposed Knox County Schools’ policy that would let the Board of
Education have input and review the dismissal of nontenured teachers
continues to remain at an impasse.

The school board on Wednesday
again couldn’t come to an agreement about what revisions – if any – it
would like to put into the policy.

Members are expected to talk more about the matter in the coming months.

The
board has spent months looking to resolve objections to the way KCS
handles renewals of non-tenured teachers, going back and forth on the
language and what they want in the policy and what they don’t want in
it.

The discussions come as dozens of teachers voiced concerns about the non-renewal process on their contracts.

Currently, if a teacher is not tenured, the superintendent can choose to not renew a contract without reason.

Teachers
are concerned the process on their contract is not clear, and some have
called it unfair. They also have argued that termination of one job –
without explanation – is often career-ending.
On Wednesday, the board shot down some proposed revisions in a 5-3 vote.

“Some
of the revisions were brought to us late in the day and they could
possible create new problems and I don’t think they addressed the
problems in the past,” said school board member Patti Bounds.

For
example, she said, a key sticking point for a number of board members
was that language – initially proposed – that would allow board members
to affirm dismissals was removed.

Bounds said she wants the board
to have the chance to review any nontenured teacher dismissals and to
have a chance to either affirm or deny them. Also, if the board voted
for no renewal, she wants teachers to have the option to appeal such a
decision.

“I feel it’s another checks and balances that needs to be in place,” she said.

Board member Amber Rountree agreed.

"I didn't feel like the policy as presented didn’t really restore any decision-making powers to the board," she said.

Every
year, according to district officials, between 30 and 50 – or about 1
percent – of all non-tenured teachers are non-renewed. This year, 45
teachers were non-renewed. Last year, that number was 55.

Carson said she’d rather officials look at procedure rather than policy.

“I
think the board should tell the superintendent to go back and look at
what we’ve done the past few years – it’s very easy to review,” she
said. “Changing policy should never be a knee-jerk reaction. I think the
bottom line is that what we want is to make sure the procedure is the
best way to carry out that policy.”

She added: “I think it starts
with the review of what are we doing now. Do we have a case where the
procedure in place is good but three out of 90 administrators didn’t
follow it? Or do we have a case where it’s not followed by half the
people or do we have a case where it’s just a bad procedure?”

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the glass is usually half empty

My name is Mike Donila and I'm a reporter with WBIR in Knoxville, TN. I cover government. All politics is local, and mostly ridiculous. Travis Fain of Lucid Idiocy said that. He's a smart guy. This is my blog. The content ranges.